I talked with a friend last week who encouraged, nay urged me to start doing bookstore appearances to promote VTW. She's absolutely right. I need to do more to promote the deck. Coincidentally, we had gotten a postcard in the mail announcing that Dancing Moon, the sole surviving local metaphysical bookstore, had moved and was having a grand opening on Saturday at their new location. Seemed like perfect timing, so we went out there Saturday afternoon.
I talked to two sales clerks and the owner, and to say the response was less than enthused would be an understatement. In fact, chilly would be a better word. Partly this was my fault: I should have brought a sample of the deck. But last time we were at Dancing Moon, they had had a great Tarot selection. So I assumed they would have VTW and didn't bother to bring a copy. Well, their great Tarot selection isn't so great anymore. In fact they may not have added anything to the stock since the last time we were there, which was almost a year ago.
So they didn't have VTW in stock, didn't know if it had ever been in stock, wouldn't look it up, wouldn't even write the name down when I asked them to consider carrying it. The owner said that she wasn't all that into Tarot and asked me to call back in three weeks so we could set an appointment to discuss whether or not she would let me do an appearance.
In other words, it was pretty much a total disaster. It could have been worse -- we could have been thrown out and admonished never to darken their doorstep again -- but it's clear they have little interest. So much for supporting the local community! I thought that an independent, specialized bookstore would be happy to know about a local author in their genre.
At times I felt like we weren't quite having the same conversation. Like maybe they thought I was some crackpot who was trying to foist something off on them? For instance, one exchange went like this:
her: "So are you working hard on your deck?"
me: "Well, I did work hard on it but it was finished two years ago. It was published in March."
her: "Oh, do you sell it at Renaissence Faires?"
me: "Um, no, it's sold in bookstores. In fact, it would be great if you would carry it here."
her: (blank look)
I told them more than once that VTW was published by Llewellyn, but that didn't meet with any recognition. Either they aren't familiar with Llewellyn, which is hard to believe, or they just weren't listening to me at all. Which is more likely. I wanted to ask them if they had a Llewellyn catalog handy, so I could show them the deck, but they were giving off such a brush-off vibe that I just wanted to get out of there. All in all the experience was quite a downer.
So I guess I'll get off my butt and finally follow up with Borders and Barnes & Noble. At least they had the grace to act happy when I introduced myself to the floor managers there. The guy at Borders was really nice -- he ordered extra copies on the spot.
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